If there’s one thing I promised myself several times already this year, it’s that I’ll stop putting off reading good books. I have such a terrible habit of buying books that I just know that I will absolutely love. And then I put them in the stack, and three years later remember with a guilty start that I haven’t so much as cracked open their covers yet. I know Marie Kondo would tell me to throw those books away, but I do very much intend to read them all. It’s not my fault procrastination is one of my character traits. When I unwrapped Dev1at3 by Jay Kristoff at Christmas last year, I promised myself, and the room at large, that I was going to actually read this book quickly. As it’s the third book I’ve read in 2020, I like to think that I’ve actually achieved that. And oh, I am so glad that I did read Dev1at3 quickly.
Unlike my usual dysfunctional reading habits (I’m surprising myself in all kinds of ways here), I took the time to re-read Lifel1k3 before jumping into Dev1at3 so that I could remind myself of what happened before. It’s always a wise decision for me to make. My memory is faultier than a leaky sieve. You can read my gushing thoughts on that HERE, if you’re interested. Dev1at3 continues the epic dystopian adventure that Lifel1k3 began. It bills itself as “A crazed mash-up of Blade Runner, Paradise Lost, X-Men, Mad Max and everything in between”. If that sounds epic to you, trust me, it is. This is one of the best dystopian books I have read in a very long time. When you get a book as epic as Lifel1k3, it’s hard to think that a follow-up can continue to be quite as good. Every sequel has that problem. If the first book in a series is so good, how can the sequel possibly hope to satisfy?
Thankfully, in my humble opinion, Dev1at3 definitely manages that. We get so much more of what was great about the first book, the banter, the adventure, the weird dystopian twist on our world, robots, and all the rest. Book two takes these things that I loved in Lifel1k3 and runs with them, throwing a truckload of other awesomeness into the mix to keep things fresh and interesting. It’s not just more of the same.
One of my favourite things about Dev1at3 is that my favourite character Lemon Fresh gets way more screen time. Book one was all about Evie Carpenter, but book two is Lemon Fresh’s. She’s smart and sassy and just wanted to belong somewhere. She’s well aware that her role in life is that of the side-kick and comic relief, so it’s an interesting shift during Dev1at3, whenshe’s thrown into the leading role and doesn’t quite know how to deal with it. I hope that book three gives us more amazing Lemon Fresh, because she is brilliful (beautiful and brilliant, so she tells us).
There are also more deviants, as the book title would suggest, basically people with super powers. I’m certainly not opposed to awesome abilities in my books. There’s a woman who is literally filled with bees, robot arena fights (very Real Steel), and plenty more murderbots. Without spoiling anything, all I can say is that if you haven’t read Lifel1k3 and Dev1at3 yet, do yourself a favour and pick them up. They are some of the best dystopian books I’ve picked up in a long time. It’s a good time to catch up before the third book is published!
Have you read either of these books yet? What is the best dystopian book you’ve read recently?
